Mini Expedition To The Isle of Angelsey Wales

July 2017 (In the Sprinter)

We visit Wales quite often for mini weekend ‘advantures’ to explore the magnificent coastline, mountains and secluded beaches but not so much the Isle Of Angelsey an island off the east coast of mainland Wales, 715 square kilometres in size. Memories of Angelsey are from childhood and from times when we brought the children on seaside camping trips. It is remembered as a grey, wet and sometime grim place with little in the way of attractive places to visit, apart from the sea, with no eateries and the like.

I always wonder why the inhabitants don’t paint their depressingly grey pebble dashed houses white and often joke about starting a ‘Paint Wales White’ campaign to brighten the place up!

I suspect that it lacks investment of money from people willing to spend it because of the clientele that frequent the Island. It is often thought of as a place where people from the city of Liverpool visit, in particular the west coast where huge static caravan ghettos blight the landscape, arranged on a 25 degree angle in a field near a main A road. So long as they have a sea view, however distant, seems to be all that matters. Oh and a ‘chippy’ and an ‘offy’. That’s a fish and chip shop and a shop selling beer by the way.

Angelsey also has the problem of poor 4G phone and internet coverage. The coverage is sporadic and I remember chasing the internet on one trip and giving up by driving onto mainland Wales. So working on our laptops might be frustrating.

The poor island of Angelsey also has the scourge of a nuclear power plant, the Wylfa reactors and three wind turbine ‘farms’ to spoil the vistas which has put us off from visiting when there are so many other places to explore.

All said, we decided to spend four nights exploring the coastline in Sprinter Van to see what we could find in the way of natural beauty, sand, sea, wild camping and sites with fresh Sprinter Van eyes.

We checked the weather forecast and we were please with what we found – no rain- so off we went on Friday afternoon heading for the north east tip of the island to Penmon.